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Whats up Sorry State readers, I hope everyone has had a nice week. It finally feels like spring has arrived here in NC, though we’ll see if we get hit with another cold blast. This past week I returned from my road trip across the South East which was a bunch of fun. I got to listen to a whole lot of bluegrass, see most of my family, and show my girlfriend around where I grew up. When we were in Memphis for a couple days, we decided to drive down to Oxford, MS for the day just to hang out in town and walk around. If you don’t know, Ole Miss is located right in Oxford and the town basically revolves around the school. This is pretty much the southern-preppy capital so it’s a little funny, but the town also has a long and interesting history on its own, including being the home of William Faulkner, a southern author whose stories often took place in the fictional Mississippi county Yoknapatawpha. You can even still visit his house and walk around the property and see where he’d sit and write and draw inspiration from. Like a true old southern town, the town square is the most central part of town where everything is: shops, restaurants, bars and a big ol court house right in the middle for good measure. Hidden in this bustling square though, right up some stairs to the side of a building, I came across a record store. End of All Music was the name of the shop and I was absolutely blown away by it. Right away you could tell this shop was run by people who really loved and cared about music. A vast collection of all genres of music, used and new, and organized very well so it was easy to find what you’re looking for. I was fully expecting a run of the mill record store located in this preppy college town’s square and was happily surprised. I could’ve stayed in there for hours flipping through everything but my mom and girlfriend didn’t come down to Oxford to watch me shop for records all day, so it was kept to a brief visit. When I’m in a situation like this, out of state in a great record store, I like to get something totally out of left field. Maybe I’ll like it, maybe I won’t, but I’ll always remember when and where I got it. I came across this record, Hypnotic Guitar of John Ondolo, released on Mississippi Records (very fitting). I like being hypnotized by a guitar and I knew I would never listen to this unless I just bought it, so I decided to go with that. John Ondolo was a guitarist, singer, songwriter and filmmaker from Tanzania, which is pretty impressive. The songs on here are nothing crazy, just rhythmic guitar with some vocals, a flute, and percussion. It’s not something I’d necessarily be dying to get, but I’m glad I bought it. Sometimes, especially I feel the longer you’ve been collecting, you can fall into certain buying patterns. You have a long list of stuff you wanna get by certain artists, and sometimes it can be hard to stray from that, but I think it’s important sometimes to pick something up that you’ve never seen or heard of in your life and say “this looks cool, I’m gonna get this.” You may not always hit a home run, but it’s important to expand your musical horizons and try a little bit of everything. And who knows you might just find your new favorite thing. If I didn’t get this record, I probably could’ve gone my whole life without hearing any music that came out of Tanzania, so I’m glad I decided to pick this up. It’s kinda sounding like I’m saying I don’t like this record, but I’m too stubborn to admit it, which is far from the truth. It’s just not a record I’m gonna be listening to everyday but there’s some songs on here I really enjoy like Haukutoka Mbinguni. However, I know one day I’ll have a musical itch in my head and wanna hear something and I’ll be flipping through my records going “no….no…..no….no” and then I’ll come across this record and throw it on and the memories will come flooding back in and l’ll smile.